I returned last weekend from Korea to hear about a 100-storey skyscraper in the pipeline for construction in the upcoming Greater KL region. What a coincidence, as the talk when I was overseas was about a similar tall building in Seoul, predicted to be the second tallest in the world when completed in 2014. I also heard that the cost of the building here is going to be approximately RM5 billion.

My first reaction was that of astonishment. Nevertheless, I pledged to be fair as I pondered on it and after digesting the likely consequences, I will begin by first commending the committee who thought up this long-term plan right into 2020 for their forward thinking as we are a developing nation and such a project may well be a welcomed necessity by then.

However, I do not have the facts about the actual reason the idea was conceived and as I may not be fully abreast about the real estate scene, and thus my apologies if I am remiss, but wasn’t three years to fully occupy the KLCC/Petronas Twin Towers not a rather long time to start recovering revenue for such a world-renowned hotspot? Can we really afford another pursuit of such magnitude at an economically crucial time such as this?

Or are we merely fanning our fizzling sense of achievement to remain relevant internationally because truth to be told, we are recognised in some circles nowadays for our ability to create record-breaking feats which do not necessarily benefit the rakyat as a whole, but merely serve to enrich a select few.

We all know development has to go on for a nation to progress and I personally feel that the Greater KL project is a good one as Malaysia becomes more cosmopolitan. But has enough been done to ensure the sustainability of that sort of mega-project in terms of remuneration to all levels of the Malaysian society? Previn Singhe in his early October 2010 article in The Edge raised many thoughts about pre-embarkment issues regarding that project and without addressing those well-pointed concerns, the whole plan could pose problems later.

Road conditions, for starters, have to be dealt with as although we do have one of the best road systems in Asia, it is still just not good enough to propel us into the league of developed nations. Citizen Nades’ column in The Sun on Oct 18 pondered on those issues too, as well as on road- related security risks that the authorities have seem to have lost control of.

Attracting foreign investors would be a plus but along with that, would we have to deal with other social problems that certain countries on that list of hopeful investors would bring? Would the Malaysian man in the street have to compete with foreigners to keep his job, when the scenario should be to allow him to then move on to a higher position and not to forsake him in favour of the foreigner?

Would the population influx due to migration create new groups unwilling to assimilate themselves with him and thereby leading to problems some developed countries are currently facing? Was he asked for his opinion before those plans to supposedly improve his situation were made? He does have a right to know, mainly because he pays taxes.

Our budget for 2011 is out and it looks to me, a non-economist nor a stringent budget scrutineer, to be the same as last year’s except for some insertions that may attract higher income earners to shop for designer goods, things that most citizens who form the backbone of this country have little or no use for.

These are luxuries that they may desire but could not afford hence, how does an additional item such as that bring about any value-added benefit to them other than to be well-informed that such extravagances are available in our market? Their priorities, if correct, would then dictate that those dream purchases are out of their reach.

We are actively promoting the field of medical tourism and I do believe we have the expertise and resources to make Malaysia a regional, as well as an international, medical hub. Sadly, that ability and attraction is largely within the realm of the private medical sector. What benefit does the regular working person gain from it? Would those aspirations benefit a foreigner more than our own countryman?

Could some of the allocated funds be channeled to the government health sector instead to improve the care in our rural regions? Would the slight increase in the allocation for schools steer the relevant bodies to utilise part of those funds to develop a system to weed out errant so-called educators and confer the needful disciplinary action for their misdeeds, instead of merely transferring them to higher departments that control the welfare of a larger student population and where they could exercise and spit their racial venom with relative ease?

Setting that kind of precedence can make the loyal citizen unhappy and consequently distort his desire to be productive for his country. I could delve further into other issues such as my opinion on the upcoming second Angkasawan plan but will refrain myself so as to stick to the pertinent topic at hand but I will add that it may be timely now to re-examine our own priorities.

Developed countries already have the infrastructure to embark on their huge projects; we, on the other hand, began as pioneers in multimedia-linked endeavours in this region but our broadband connectivity speed has now even been surpassed by Mozambique! South Korea, which boasts the fastest download speed in the world, does not need the ego-boost to be renowned worldwide and on the contrary, the soon-to-be second tallest building is a deemed necessity.

Neither does Switzerland and as I watched with fascination on CNN the ceremony of the final drilling phase in the construction of the world’s longest 35-mile rail tunnel, I was convinced that the tunnel is likewise a necessity for them.

Snippets revealed how much each taxpayer/voter would have paid for the whole project – the common man there would know where his hard-earned tax returns are going to and to what fruition he will be contributing to. That’s democracy to the hilt. And that is what we here in Malaysia have to stand firm for…and vote for.

Megalomanic pursuits to show that a population has ‘arrived’ should be reserved for ‘wanna-bes’ only. It is appalling that many measure the success of a nation purely by its less-than-beneficial material accomplishments.

We Malaysians, on the contrary, should not see the need to prove our mettle; though no easy feat, our achievement in the arena of racial harmony through trying times simply proves to our political leaders and the rest of the world that true Malaysians, in the words of Marina Mokhtar, ‘had already embraced the concept of ‘1Malaysia’ long before the term was engineered’.

And that seals our platform to success. All that is left now is to simply amalgamate our sensibilities with our talent and natural progress will fall into motion.